News

[UPDATED] Minnesota-based Xcel Energy Inc. has settled its legal dispute with Babcock & Wilcox Nuclear Energy of Charlotte, N.C., agreeing to pay $36 million out of $45 million that B&W says it was owed. The settlement also covers pending litigation with SNC Lavalin Nuclear of Montreal, Canada...(read more)

--- Press Release --- L-3 MAPPS announced today that it has reached an agreement with STP Nuclear Operating Company to upgrade the South Texas Project full scope and classroom simulators to L-3 MAPPS’ latest Orchid® simulation platform and to equip the simulators with severe accident simulation...(read more)

French nuclear power company Areva and U.S.-based nuclear and hazardous waste management company Kurion said Thursday they would create an alliance for nuclear waste decommissioning and remediation services that would specifically serve the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) complex. The first task for...(read more)

The French government said Wednesday that it would support a rescue of struggling nuclear power giant Areva that would include a merger between its nuclear reactor business with Eletricite de France, the utility that is Areva’s largest customer. It is said to be a match made in heaven, given...(read more)

Georgia Power has released a stunning set of photographs showing the Vogtle Units 3 and 4 construction progress at the Waynesboro, Georgia site in May. More are available at http://www.georgiapower.com/about-energy/energy-sources/nuclear/gallery/search/recent.cshtml.Here, we offer a borrowed set to start you off.

Tunisia and Russia have signed a memorandum of understanding that outlines their intent to cooperate on the use of nuclear power for electricity generation and for other peaceful purposes involving medicine, agriculture, spent fuel management. The agreement also covers training technicians for these...(read more)

Brazil Resources said that it had received permission from the Alberta Department of the Environment in Canada for drilling in the Western portion of the uranium-rich Athabasca Basin in what is being called the Rea uranium project. The area covered in the permit is believed to be under-explored. About...(read more)

Rosatom chief Sergey Kiriyenko said construction on a two-reactor project in Iran would begin this fall, announcing the start target in Moscow in a forum at the Atomexpo 2015 exhibition. Kiriyenko said “full scale construction activities at Bushehr-2 will start in the fall,” referring...(read more)

Two nuclear power giants in China, the State Nuclear Power Technology Company and the China Power Investment Corporation, have announced their merger, which sent stock prices for CPIC up 13 percent Monday. Media reports say the merger is designed to give China more clout in the international nuclear...(read more)

A government panel in Japan on Monday stuck to a nuclear power target of 20-22 percent two days after 12 people were injured during a massive earthquake that shook buildings in Tokyo. The earthquake was powerful, registering a magnitude of 7.8. But the epicenter was in a remote area of the Pacific...(read more)

President Barack Obama said he was rescinding a state of emergency order put in place to allow the executive branch control of the highly enriched uranium agreement with Russia known as the Megatons to Megawatts deal. The state of emergency was no longer required now that the program has run its course...(read more)

Brazil, which is looking for a solution to its fitful electricity generation, will turn to the private sector for its next generation of nuclear power plants, Energy Minister Eduardo Braga said this week. Braga said the Angra 3 nuclear reactor under construction in Angra dos Reis in southern Brazil...(read more)

Sellafield Ltd in Britain has announced a second contract within the month that it has awarded for containers for nuclear waste. Early in May, Sellafield said it had awarded a 10-year, $73 million contract to Stainless Metalcraft, a division of engineering firm Avingtrans, for development of a storage...(read more)

The Tennessee Valley Authority said Wednesday it had reached a regulatory milestone, announcing the Nuclear Regulatory Commission had voted to direct the Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation to issue an operating license for Watts Bar 2, decades after construction had begun on the unit. Construction...(read more)

Barring an unforeseen event, the next headline from Japan concerning its suspended nuclear power industry could be that the lights have been switched back on at the Sendai nuclear power plant operated by the Kyushu Electric Power Company. On Wednesday, the country’s Nuclear Regulation Authority...(read more)

The Tennessee Valley Authority’s Inspector General said that French nuclear engineering firm Areva over-billed the TVA by more than $1.2 million for assessment work at the unfinished Bellefonte Nuclear Power Plant in Hollywood, Alabama. Areva has already returned $607,637 to the TVA for over...(read more)

Two offline nuclear power plants in the northeast returned to service following the Memorial Day weekend after routine refueling and maintenance outages that cost a total of $160 million. Unit 2 of the PPL Corporation’s Susquehanna nuclear plant in Luzerne County, Pa. returned to active service...(read more)

The final report expected from the United Nations’ International Atomic Energy Agency on the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant accident that occurred in March 2011, says the three-reactor meltdown was due, in part, to the lack of a response to concerns that a tsunami event could hit the plant...(read more)

The future of struggling French nuclear build specialist Areva is still up in the air, but some of the players are jockeying for position, at least in the eyes of the media. Jean-Bernard Levy, the head of state-owned French utility Electricite de France (EDF) said this week that his company, the largest...(read more)

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission on Thursday denied a request from an environmental group to shut down the Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant near San Luis Obispo, California, due to earthquake risks. Both plant operator Pacific Gas & Electric and environmental group Friends of the Earth claimed...(read more)

British nuclear plant decommissioning company Magnox said Thursday that it would cut 1,600 jobs at 12 different nuclear power stations, none of which, with the exception of Wylfa on Anglesey in North Wales, is still in production. The Wylfa plant is scheduled for shut down in 2016. Magnox said...(read more)

South Africa’s Energy Minister Tina Joemat-Pettersson said this week that the country would chose a strategic partner or partners by the end of the year who would help build a fleet of nuclear power plants. Newswire service AFP reported that South Africa’s goal is to build eight nuclear...(read more)

Canadian valve-maker Velan Inc. said Tuesday that it had been awarded a major contract from the nuclear sector in China. Specifically, Velan S.A.S., a Velan Inc. subsidiary located in Lyon, France, has been awarded important contracts for the supply of nuclear class valves to China Nuclear Power Engineering...(read more)

Efforts to restart Japan’s nuclear power plants suffered a setback and a victory this week, as a district court upheld an injunction preventing one restart and the Nuclear Regulatory Agency approved the restart of another reactor. The Fukui District Court’s ruling prevents the restart...(read more)

Electricity de France Chief Executive Officer Jean-Bernard Levy confirmed Tuesday that the company, which operates more nuclear power plants than any other, is preparing a bid for the Areva’s reactor division, which analysts say is valued at about $3.3 billion. Levy said there was “a certain...(read more)

South Carolina Electric & Gas said in a regulatory filing that Unit 2 at the VC Summer nuclear plant construction site would not be completed until 10 August 2019, pushing the completion date back from a previous estimate of June 2019. Construction of VC Summer Unit 3, however, was estimated to have...(read more)

U.S. regulators said Monday that four U.S. electric utility companies, representing close to 50 percent of the country’s nuclear generation, have formally requested a review, by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, of Lightbridge Corporation metallic fuel design, which might be available for testing...(read more)

California-based waste water management firm Kurion Inc. said Monday that it had been awarded a contract to treat radioactive water at the Cimarron fuel fabrication facility in Guthrie, Oklahoma, which could open a door for potential company growth. Kurion, which has designed mobile water treatment...(read more)

Workers at the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power facility in Japan began preliminary steps to removing the cover from the No. 1 reactor building Friday, a day after the U.N.’s International Atomic Energy Agency released its third report concerning a visit to the plant early in the year....(read more)

The Nuclear Energy Institute on Thursday announced its 2015 best industry practice awards, naming a team of Exelon employees as winners of the B. Ralph Sylvia Best of the Best Award for an innovative management process that digitalizes work packages. “The employees were honored for their Electronic...(read more)

The China National Nuclear Corporation was granted permission Wednesday to raise $2.6 billion in an initial public offering on the Shanghai stock exchange. Market regulators approved of the company’s IPO offering that hinges in an issuance of 3.65 billion shares to raise 16.3 billion yuan. ...(read more)

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission on Wednesday directed Energy Northwest and Pacific Gas and Electric Company, operators of the Columbia Generating Station in Washington state and the Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant in California, to take the next step in a review of seismic hazards by assessing the...(read more)

-Press Release- L-3 MAPPS announced today that it has received an order from GE Energy Control Solutions (GE) to implement the new GE EX2100e main generator excitation control system on the Cernavodă full scope simulator owned and operated by Societatea Nationala Nuclearelectrica S.A. (“SNN”...(read more)

Westinghouse Electric Company and its subsidiary WesDyne International said Wednesday that it had been awarded a long-term contract for nuclear reactor pressure vessel nozzle inspection at Leibstadt Nuclear Power Plant (KKL) in Switzerland – a six year contract with an option for four additional...(read more)

[UPDATED] Saving the U.S. nuclear power industry is the equivalent of saving hundreds of thousands of “solid, middle-class jobs,” an editorial written by the president of North America's Building Trades Unions Sean McGarvey declared on Wednesday. In the opinion piece published by The...(read more)

Pasadena-based Jabobs Engineering Group Inc. said Tuesday it had been awarded an EDF Energy contract to provide project management resources for the company’s entire British nuclear plant fleet, which includes eight nuclear power stations and two technical centers. Jacobs said it would provide...(read more)

GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy said it would make a formal announcement Tuesday to declare it will enter the service market for pressurized water reactors made by competitors. The company traditionally specializes in design, construction and servicing of boiling water reactors, but GEH said it is expanding...(read more)

A struggling engineering firm from Britain, Avingtrans, has been awarded a $73 million contract to build nuclear waste storage containers at Sellafield, site of one of the world’s oldest nuclear power plants, which went on line in 1956. The 10-year contract involves Stainless Metalcraft, which...(read more)

Nuclear power remains the cheapest source of electricity in Japan despite safety upgrades and decommissioning costs associated with the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant disaster, a Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry panel said Monday. The agency panel predicted the price of nuclear power...(read more)

-Prees Release- San Diego, California – Diakont, a leading provider of high-tech solutions for the nuclear industry, has begun supply of new D40 console systems which furnish all of the components required to complete visual inspections in high rad environments, including the best-in-class D40...(read more)

The place to be to take advantage of Asia’s $800 billion binge in nuclear power plants is in Australia, specifically with your hands on the deed to a uranium mine, according to a Bloomberg analysis and experts in the field. Uranium miners in Australia are already planning about a half dozen...(read more)

The New York Public Services Commission is listening, and on the line is a deal struck by Rochester Gas & Electric and Exelon Corporation, the owners of the R.E. Ginna Nuclear Power Plant in Ontario, New York, that Exelon says will keep the nuclear power plant in the black through 2017 and possibly...(read more)

A three-member federal panel in Canada has approved of burial of low and intermediate-level radioactive materials from nuclear power plants at a site 0.7 miles from the shores of Lake Huron, which became a rallying cry for anti-nuclear groups who claimed the project would threaten a massive supply of...(read more)

French nuclear plant builder Areva said Thursday that it would soon negotiate with union leadership with the aim of cutting 18 percent of its labor cost, a move that would mean a loss of between 4,000 and 6,000 jobs. Along with job losses, which would be part of a two-year plan, the company said it...(read more)

China National Nuclear Corporation said Wednesday that construction of its third generation ACP1000 reactor would begin this week at the Fuqing nuclear power plant in Fujian province. The ACP1000 design will be used for Units 5 and 6 at the plant as demonstration models that are expected to be the...(read more)

Struggling French nuclear power giant Areva notched some positive news this week, including Tuesday's announcement that used fuel storage division Areva TN had signed a module supply contract with Exelon Nuclear. The contract calls for 30 NUHOMS horizontal storage modules (HSM)-H for used fuel...(read more)

Westinghouse Electric Company said Monday that it had delivered approximately 200 tons of reactor vessel components to the Vogtle Electric Generating Plant construction site in Waynesboro, Georgia, on April 28, last week. "The completion of this milestone culminated a steadfast effort to fabricate...(read more)

A third robotic probe in development for the International Research Institute for Nuclear Decommissioning has gotten its assignment at Tokyo Electric Power Company's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, which was crippled by a tsunami event that followed a massive earthquake in March 2011. Two robotic...(read more)

If Maine is any indication of how small nuclear power plants will be received by the nation, it seems fair to say that they will not be sneaked in through a side door. Legislators in Maine, which currently has no nuclear power plants in operation, held a pubic hearing last week to air out concerns...(read more)

Portions of French nuclear construction giant Areva could end up belonging to Chinese firms, a French newspaper reported Sunday. Le Journal du Dimanche (The Sunday Journal) reported that China General Nuclear Power Corporation and China National Nuclear Corporation were amenable to taking a stake...(read more)